See It in Practice

Using the information from this section of the Excelsior OWL on developing a clear structure for a college essay, our student has now established a plan for her essay and has created a visual to help illustrate what her final essay will look like. In the video, she discusses her introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

Video Transcript
Student says:

After reviewing the pages on essay structure in the Online Writing Lab, I made a plan for my essay using the “traditional” essay structure with an introduction, body paragraphs with topic sentences related to my thesis, and a conclusion. The only thing that was different for me was that I had a lot more than three body paragraphs for my body. Since my essay has to be 4 to 6 pages in length, I needed to make a plan for more topic sentences. Still, the traditional structure still works very well. I just expanded on the number of body paragraphs, which everyone has to do sometimes.

Here, I modeled the sample in the Online Writing Lab to help me make a good plan and to help me visualize that plan as I draft my essay.

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